Once and Future
by Unnamed.in.whispers
Summary: In the hour of Britain's greatest need, King Arthur will return to rescue his people.


**Title:** Once and future… **Pairing:** Merlin/Arthur

**Series:** Merlin

**Rating: **18 **Type: **AU/ Angst

**Summary:** In the hour of Britain's greatest need, **King Arthur will return** to rescue his people.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Merlin characters or anything from the universe of Merlin. I am just taking the characters and playing with them a while – promising to restore them whole and unblemished! Thanks to Shine Productions for creating these toys for me to enjoy. Please don't take any of my playing as having any bearing on the actual series. Enjoy.

The thing about England these days was that it was warm in the winter.

Warm in the winter and flooded by spring.

Merlin huffed; it was almost as if the seasons themselves rebelled against the state of affairs; the world seemed to be going mad of late.

For the first few hundred years of his life, Merlin had been so involved in the people and their lives that he had attempted, far too many times, to advise the generations that followed Camelot on how best to approach alliances, ruling, coalition and the crown… but as he watched the same types of people make the same mistakes and never learning from the past he grew weary, all too tired of the heartache such involvement brought.

Merlin sighed; he was so old now… he felt in his bones. How his muscles strained and protested against movement on early mornings… how his skin felt stretched and thin… how his eyes dried; he had seen so much. Endured… so very much.

He looked out of the window of his little cottage, as he had each morning and night for the past few thousand years, and he saw what he always saw… the tower of St Michael's looked out over the Vale of Avalon, shrouded in mist and mysticism.

Through war and blight and death and pain… there the Tor remained; silent and still.

He had not returned.

England suffered and fought and tore itself apart from within and yet Arthur had not returned to Camelot.

To England.

To his people.

To Merlin.

And still, years and decades and centuries passed… Merlin waited and dared to hope.

There were nights where, unable to sleep, he would keep a vigil at his window and watch the sun set and rise while never breaking his gaze on the place his friend last slept… he sometimes wondered if he would find the peace Arthur had found…

In all that time the mud huts that grew near the ancient place became a village and then the village became a town… that town turned into a place of worship then mysticism and then myth…

At first there were friends; each friend would have children, who in-turn became friends as their parents passed… and on… and on… each generation proving that nothing, not even love, lasts forever.

By all that was holy… Merlin was so old now. The magic that kept him burned in his heart and would not let him pass. Surely that meant there was hope. Somehow…

This night was not unusual in any way, save for the uncharacteristically mild, even warm, climate given the season. Mere days had passed since the breaking of a new decade in yet another century that Merlin was uninterested in and, it seemed, the weather again disobeyed it's predicted cold and clear casting.

The rain was light to begin with but soon turned fat and depressing, hammering at the roof with an unrelenting, obnoxious volume. It tapped into his head and drummed that deep that there was no sleep for the ancient sorcerer.

Merlin remembered a storm like this only once in his lifetime, in Camelot. He and the then Prince had spent a day and a night digging back a trench to fight the flood…

It was a different world; a world of wonder, of good men and women, of unity and a bright future…

The 21st century had no hope, it had been eroded down the centuries by mistrust and broken promises. There were no leaders to guide the people; no one in whom the people could believe.

At the thought, a great strike screamed down from the heavens, splitting the sky in a bright, blue bolt of anger aimed in one direction: the Tor!

Merlin was on his feet without thought or intention.

Had he had heard it in the lightening?

Without hesitation, he ripped open the door of his humble cottage and barrelled into the night, praying that the flood would be kind and leave his way clear.

Merlin was wide-eyed and sprinting toward the Tor because he was certain he had heard what he did… he heard a voice call his name.

Thunder rolled in the sky and seemed to draw the clouds in upon themselves to throw down heavy, iced rocks of rain before another crack of light bolted through the heavens.

It was there again! Merlin was sure this time, a voice calling to him… he pushed his old legs faster toward the Tor as the wind whipped about him. And though he was astonished to feel it, adrenaline raced in his veins, pounding louder than the heart he felt had lodged itself in his throat.

Because he knew that voice… that pitch and tone… he had not heard that voice call his name for thousands of years…

Could it be?

He broke onto the hill in full sprint, as if time had melted away in the wash of the weather and Merlin was restored to the young man of twenty he had been so many hundreds of years past.

Gulping breath into his lungs in shallow, painful bursts, Merlin cleared the peak of the Tor and skidded to a halt.

The fat moon lit his scene as lightning struck a highlight across the flesh of a trembling body. Thick muscle bunched at the sound of thunder cracking the sky as the naked man curled in on himself.

Merlin couldn't move. His heart was pounding.

And not because he had ran to this place, the first and last place he looked on every day for more than a thousand years.

Not because he had fought his way against a storm to reach the ruins of St Michaels only to find a terrified and naked man, shivering in the rain.

But because he knew exactly who he was looking at.

Another strike of lightening hit the ground like a slap and spurred him to action as Merlin rushed to rip the wax coat from his back and wrap the other man in it.

Surely this was a dream.

But the blonde man shivering in his arms blinked furiously as he turned his face upward and into the rain.

Merlin felt his hold tighten as if unwilling to believe this was anything other than the miracle he believed it to be… but how? After all this time?

Blue eyes winced against the rain as the other man found his face and reached a trembling hand up to touch Merlin's face, his cold fingers resting a moment on the other mans cheek while he frowned, confused…

Of course, Merlin would look like an old man to him… he had lived in the world for hundreds of years where his friend had stopped, frozen. There was no way he would…

"Merlin…" Arthur whispered in a croak… licking his lips as though parched of moisture… "Merlin?" He asked then, with a little more strength.

Merlin felt his heart clench… "Arthur," he breathed, almost scared that saying his friends name would wake him from a dream to find none of this had been reality.

But the rain kept falling.

The wind grew stronger.

And Arthur remained in Merlin's arms; the Once and Future King had returned.


End file.
